Which White Peony (Bai MuDan) Tea: Teavivre Versus Shine Wing Tea

By: Aileen - July 16, 2017

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White Peony (Bai Mudan) is a type of white tea known for its fuller flavor and greater potency compared with Bai Hao Yinzhen, another type of white tea. In general, white peony has a mild floral aroma and fruity flavor. It is also often low on caffeine, making it the perfect choice for an evening tea.

(L) Shine Wing Tea (R) Teavivre

In this post, we will be comparing white peony from Teavivre and Shine Wing Tea. As always, we will take notes of their aroma, flavor, and characteristics of their leaves and liquor.

White Peony (Bai MuDan) Leaves

Characteristics

(L) Teavivre (R) Shine Wing Tea

One of the most distinguishing characteristics of white peony tea leaves is that they're covered in white hairs. With Teavivre, you can easily see that the leaves have that distinguishing factor while leaves from Shine Wing Tea have minimal visible white hairs.

Teavivre's leaves are smaller than Shine Wing Tea's and their colors are mostly dark/moss green and grey green. Shine Wing Tea's on the other hand, have bigger leaves with shades ranging from light to dark green.

Aroma

Both sets of leaves give off a delicate floral aroma with Teavivre having a hint of sweetness in it. White Peony (Bai MuDan) from Teavivre has a stronger aroma than Shine Wing Tea. Teavivre's also has a bit of grassy (like fresh leaves) scent that we didn't initially noticed with Shine Wing Tea's leaves.

After brewing, however, we noticed that both leaves already have the "fresh leaves scent" in them. In addition, the mild floral aroma on Shine Wing Tea's steeped leaves was faintly there.

Liquor

For this post, we used three teaspoons of white peony tea leaves from Teavivre and Shine Wing Tea. We steeped the leaves for five minutes at 185-degree Fahrenheit (85-degree Celsius).

(L) Shine Wing Tea (R) Teavivre

Characteristics

The liquor from Shine Wing Tea is pale yellow while Teavivre's has a darker shade, similar to golden yellow.

Aroma

Both liquors have a mild floral aroma but Teavivre's has a slight grassy aroma mixed in.

Flavor

Teavivre is more flavorful than Shine Wing Tea, which gives a very light flavor. Thankfully, the grassy aroma of Teavivre's liquor stayed as just an aroma. Teavivre's white peony tea has a mellow flavor and a sweet aftertaste.

In our review, we mentioned that Teavivre's white peony tea is thin in the mouth. Reddit user _Soggy_ suggested to use more leaves (4 grams for 300 ml and steep for three to four minutes) as Bai Mudans could give you a nice thickness. So we're going to try that on our next brewing! ;)

Surprisingly, it was Shine Wing Tea's white peony tea that has the grassy (like fresh leaves) flavor. It also has some floral notes. Additionally, Shine Wing Tea's white peony tea has a hint of bitterness (the good kind), which we didn't mind at all as it gave the tea a bit more characteristic. Similar to Teavivre, Shine Wing tea also has a sweet aftertaste

Overall Experience

Both white peony tea varieties are good but what's a comparison for if we won't tell you which one we liked best, right? Between the two, we preferred Shine Wing Tea's white peony tea. When the tea has cooled a little, Teavivre got a bit bitter while Shine Wing tea actually tasted better. We also loved that we got bigger leaves from Shine Wing Tea. With regards to the flavor, we'll be trying out different amounts of leaves to get the flavor —and texture— we want from both brands.

Want to buy white peony from Teavivre or Shine Wing Tea? Here are the links:

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